Vladimir Putin is leading Russia’s Victory Day commemorations with a parade in Red Square and heightened security after days of Ukrainian strikes targeting the capital.
Chinese President Xi Jingping is among more than 20 international leaders who have made the journey to Moscow.
A unilateral, three-day ceasefire was announced by Russia to coincide with the lavish 80th anniversary event, which Ukraine has rejected as a “theatrical show” designed to protect the parade.
Ukraine’s military said it has come under thousands of attacks since the ceasefire came into force on 8 May. Russia has insisted the ceasefire is being observed and accused Ukraine of hundreds of violations.
In the days ahead of the proposed truce, Moscow and Kyiv exchanged a barrage of strikes.
Flights at airports across Russia were cancelled and some 60,000 passengers left stranded in the wake of Ukrainian drone attacks.
Heavy restrictions are in place in the centre of Moscow as Russia prepares to mark the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
Russia says 27 world leaders are attending the event, with thousands of troops marching on Red Square ahead of a parade of some of Russia’s latest weaponry.
Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro are among the assembled guests, along with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister who is the only European Union leader to travel to Moscow.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas had earlier made clear that European leaders should not take part because of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine.
For Putin, the attendance of China’s Xi on Victory Day is seen as a significant achievement. The two men held two rounds of talks before the parade as well as an informal chat on the war in Ukraine, Chinese reports said.
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier warned that he could not guarantee the safety of anyone attending the event and has urged heads of state not to travel to Moscow.
Mykhailo Samus, a Ukrainian military analyst and director of the New Geopolitics Research Network, told the BBC he believed that Ukraine would forego attacking the parade, largely because of the presence of foreign leaders.
But should Ukraine choose to do so, it would constitute a legitimate military target, Samus said.
During his evening address on Thursday, Zelensky said that Ukraine was “ready for a full ceasefire starting right now”.
“But it must be real,” he said in a video on X. “No missile or drone strikes, no hundreds of assaults on the front.”
He called on Russia to support the ceasefire and “prove their willingness to end the war”.
Ukraine has accused Russia of violating its own truce thousands of times since it was supposed to come into effect on Wednesday night.
On the second day of the truce, Ukraine said there had been nearly 200 clashes along the front line, eighteen Russian air strikes and almost four thousand instances of shelling by Russian troops.
In Prymorske, a village in the Zaporizhzhia region, a woman was reportedly killed after a Russian drone struck her car.
Russia’s defence ministry has said that all groups of Russian forces in Ukraine “completely ceased combat operations and remained on the previously occupied lines and positions”. However, they were reacting in a “mirror-like manner” to violations by Ukrainian forces.
Zelensky has repeatedly dismissed Putin’s proposal as a “game” and called for a longer truce of at least 30 days, something that is supported by Ukraine’s allies in Europe and the US.
He said he had spoken with US President Donald Trump to reiterate his readiness for a “long and lasting peace” and talks “in any format”. He said he had told Trump that a 30-day ceasefire was a “real indicator” of moving towards peace.
Writing on Truth Social on Thursday, the US president reiterated the call for an unconditional ceasefire and warned of further sanctions for any party failing to sign up to it.
